The Real Enemy
by Achromos
Summary: (Loki once told him that it had been Tony who made him smile for the first time after he won the Hunger Games.)


**Author's Note:** Hellooo, I've already posted this fic on AO3, but since dear x-valren-x wanted to translate into French and post it here on FF, I thought it would be nice to eventually have both versions on the same platform.

Warnings for off-screen character death, trauma/PTSD, blood and gore. Also there be an open ending.

Enjoy!

* * *

There wasn't a single day that went by without Tony cursing the Capitol. He lived in a house paid by the Capitol. He ate food bought by the Capitol. He wore clothes made in the Capitol. He slept in a bed commissioned from the Capitol. And no matter how many times he shared it with Loki, neither of them would never be able to forget that everything they now owned, everything they now _were_ had been paid for with the blood of tributes.

To this day, Tony Stark from District 3 and Loki Laufeyson from District 4 are considered the most bloody-minded victors the Hunger Games ever brought forth. Tony killed ten of his competitors by luring them into traps that electrocuted them (his year's arena had been a swamp, and there had been electric eel, so …), and when only he and another guy were left, he'd built a kind of slingshot, with which he hunted the other guy down. Loki's arena had been a desert-like wasteland with no water at all. Loki killed fifteen of his competitors and drank their blood to survive. (And people were still calling him a vampire for that.)

Some simply assumed they were cold-blooded murderers from the beginning, and that's why they won. But Tony and Loki had simply _survived_ by valuing their lives higher than those of the other tributes for a few weeks. And now they were paying the price.

Tony had loved electricity ever since he was a small child. But now that he had killed people with it, now that he had bought his own life and riches of the likes he could never have imagined with it … Now he was afraid of it. And it was a similar thing for Loki, who couldn't drink red wine, stand in the summer sun or walk on sand, just because it reminded him too much of the Hunger Games.

At least they had been allowed to live together.

They met for the first time the year after Loki won. Both were mentoring for their successors, but Tony was more than half drunk all the time anyway, because his tributes were _kids_, goddammit, they weren't made for _killing_ and _dying_. The Capitol still loved him, though, (or they loved his inventions anyway) so Loki knew him from the broadcasts they made regularly, to keep people updated on their favorite victors. And of course Tony knew Loki from the Games – he'd watched them closely, perhaps more closely than most, because he'd seen something in the scrawny teen, something else than just blood-coated hands and sunburnt skin. At first they met to talk about the Games. How to handle the trauma. How to keep up the mask of everything-is-okay-and-I'm-the-killer-you-all-know-from-the-Games. Three years in a row they met, and once one of Loki's tributes won (the arena was a beach, a stretch of ocean and an island – of course the tributes from District 4 had the best chances to survive the stupid mutant sharks and catch fish in order not to starve). The fourth year of their little friendship aka therapy group Tony's alcohol addiction went out of control – his binge drinking almost killed him. It was a big scandal, because it happened during the Games – stole at least half of the media attention. But it was important for them, for him and Loki, because when Tony woke up, Loki was there.

They started to meet regularly then, aside from the Games. And at some point Tony realized that he loved Loki, for all his brokenness and sadness. For his anger and violence. For his tears and smiles. (Loki once told him that it had been Tony who made him smile for the first time after he won the Hunger Games.) And when he found out that Loki at least _wasn't averse_ to, well, take their friendship to the next step, he asked him out.

"Aren't you a little old for me?" Loki had teased, and he was right. Tony had been fifteen when he won the Hunger Games, and that had been 22 years ago. Loki was still in his mid-twenties, which put them more than a decade apart.

"Why, do you care?" Tony shot back.

"Mm, I don't mind older men," Loki had laughed – _laughed! _It was such a beautiful sound – and accepted Tony's courtship. As soon as the media caught wind of their affair, it became topic number one in the Capitol, adding even more popularity to their (infamy) fame as victors. But as nice as it was to get some positive attention for a change, their privacy suffered greatly. They still only had very few opportunities to meet, as leaving one's District has to be sanctioned by the Head Peacekeeper of their District – which takes _ages_.

Which was why they decided to get married and made an application for Loki to be allowed to live with Tony in District 3. (Which had been a simple decision, because as much as Tony would have loved to see the sea, Loki's nerves suffered too much from the constant presence of the long, sandy beaches and the glaring sun.) And everything would have been peachy, hadn't … If they hadn't been reminded of the humanity they lacked – the oppression, the deaths, the sufferings apart from their own.

Natasha Romanoff and Clint Barton from District 12 defied the Capitol and forced it to accept two victors, or else it would go without one (which would kind of negate President Titan's message of hope, really). They stole Tony and Loki's spotlight as the darling victor-couple (or, as some called them, the killer-fiancés), bluntly wading through the politics of the Capitol as if it wasn't a fucking mine-field. Then, of course, it all blew up in their faces.

They had been invited to the Presidential Palace, the end of Natasha and Clint's Victory Tour. Loki was wearing a dress-like piece made from white fur that hugged his pale throat and something that looked like green rippling snake skin. Tony rocked the classical pre-panemian tailcoat and silver gloves that sparkled like charged with electricity. (He secretly loved how people gave a startled squeak when he touched them with them, as if they were expecting to get electrocuted.) When a simplistic piano piece was played, Tony led Loki on the dance floor. It would have been a beautiful night, if not for the constant reminder, and the talk they'd had in bed last night.

"They are rioting," Loki had said while he had been braiding his coal-black hair for the night.

"It's because of that Natasha girl," Tony replied, smoothing out the silken bed sheets, counting the drops of blood it had cost.

"The Mockingjay."

"A revolution."

They didn't go to bed immediately, sitting across from each other instead, legs crossed, hearts wide open.

"The Games never stopped," Loki quoted something Tony had told him years ago. "Only now … our enemies are not our personal demons. Not anymore."

Tony nodded.

"President Titan, the Games, the Peacekeepers … the _system_. Panem."

"Exactly."

There had been something sparkling in Loki's eyes then, a spirit Tony had thought lost for so long. It had been what caught his attention years ago, when he had seen Loki drink his victims' blood and tear open their thorax to get to their hearts, lungs and then the liver and the kidneys. (Sometimes he saw it at night, when Loki woke, retching at the memory. Sometimes he saw it, after Loki hadn't been able to eat properly for weeks or started screaming on the street, because there were grains like sand under his soles.)

Determination.

So when they encountered Natasha and Clint, in similar outfits like them (only Natasha was a bird instead of a snake), Tony grabbed the girl for a dance, and Loki occupied Clint with a rant about the numerous kinds of fish displayed on a platter he'd snatched from the banquet.

"What do you want?" Natasha immediately asked.

"You know," Tony partially ignored her question, "Loki and I were quite upset that you stole our act. Star-crossed lovers, victor-couple … Though we were still arguing as to who would be the killer bride. With you and Clint it's obviously _Clint_. I mean, he's the girl in the relationship, right?"

She smiled at that, if only a little bit, before sobering up again.

"Seriously, why are we dancing?" she prodded.

"Aren't you having fun?"

"It's a little overwhelming," Natasha admitted, tonelessly.

"Yeah, it'll only get more so, once the President makes his speech," Tony said nonchalantly, though he felt her stiffen in his arms. "I'm curious as to what he's going to say about the riots out in the Districts. Loki heard some stuff from 3, and at home in 4 there were … disturbances. Last week I talked to Steve – Steve Rogers, victor from District 8 – and he told me about similar conditions."

"What are you getting at?" Natasha snapped. "I never intended to become the symbol of a revolution."

"Shh," Tony hissed softly, eyeing the dancing couples around them, though no one seemed to have been eavesdropping. "I know. But still, it's happening."

"Get to the point, I think your fiancé ran out of types of fish to babble about."

Tony paused then and squeezed Natasha's hand, willing her to meet and hold his gaze.

"Remember who the real enemy is."

Then he let go of her, wrapped his arm around Loki's waist and dragged his fiancé off into the quiet garden. They couldn't flee though, so they still heard President Titan's speech, and the bad feeling remained.

There was an announcement, not soon after the party. Everyone knew of course, that the Third Quarter Quell was coming up, and everyone was waiting for the big surprise to be revealed – some waited excitedly, others waited anxiously.

Loki worked himself into a screaming fit, once they heard that this year's tribute were to be chosen from the pool of past victors, and Tony only barely held onto sanity at the possibility of having to participate in the Games again, because he was _angry_. Because he knew, he _remembered who the real enemy was_.

It was clear that this was President Titan's attempt at removing Natasha without actually having to do it himself – she was the only female tribute District 12 ever had, so it was clear that her name would be drawn. And of course Clint volunteered, to be with her, the silly boy. Then came District 11, and 10, and so on, until District 4. Loki's name was not drawn, but a guy named Heimdall Keeper and a girl named Gamora Whoberi volunteered anyway, with 4 being a career District and all. Then came District 3, and the moment the Capitol lady drew the name of the male tribute, he knew it would be him.

"And our male tribute … Anthony Stark."

He blinked, numb, and his only though was that Loki wasn't here, he was in his home District for the Reaping and they wouldn't get to say goodbye, he would never get to kiss his lover again_, he was going to die_ and it would all have been for nothing …

But then someone lifted their hand and shouted "I volunteer!", and all Tony could do was draw a gasping breath. He looked to his right and saw Bruce standing there, Bruce Banner, who had won the Games a few years before him. But when they announced District 3's tributes, Ororo Munroe and Bruce Banner, suddenly everyone held up their hands, the three middle fingers stretched out – the symbol of love, compassion and anger; the revolution's symbol. Tony quickly held up his own arm, but caught Bruce's elbow, before they could drag him and Ororo away.

"Thank you," he said, and: "Remember who the real enemy is."

"I will," Bruce gasped, and then the door was shut.

The night after the Reaping, Tony was alone in his bed, still cold and stiff from the shock of his name being drawn. He couldn't sleep, obviously, so when a silent shadow slipped into his bedroom and under the sheets, he smiled.

"I was so afraid," Loki whispered, voice cracking. "I thought I was going to lose you. I can't lose you, Tony, I'll crumble and fall without you."

Tony silently enveloped his lover in his arms, sharing his warmth and connecting their rabid heartbeats until they calmed. Then he pressed a thousand butterfly kisses to Loki's hair, face, shoulders, arms and chest, before burrowing himself into the curve of the younger man's body.

"I would win a hundred Hunger Games, just to return to you," he said then, and they both knew that this meant more than 'I love you'. It meant the most beautiful and terrible things at once: devotion and the willingness to kill; undying loyalty and self-destruction.

"We will have to mentor them, to get into the heart of the Capitol," Loki murmured, when the sun was already seeping through the gaps between the curtains. "There are Games around the Hunger Games, and we will play them."

"No Loki. We will win them," Tony whispered.


End file.
